Bay 12 Games Forum

Nah pointless and they looking at it so they will see us(for a moment), Possess the drow while everyone busy and looking away.

+1

The Monoliths are symbiotic with a species of ants which burrows into their rocky outer shell. The ants get a home, the Monoliths get the ability to disgorge a swarm of venomous ants when attacked. Win/win.

Neyravah looked upon the dwarves. He found the one who slew a Fangdrake, and healed his wounds.
"What...how?"
"It is I. I am Neyravah, the one who made this mighty jungle."
"Thank you, Neyravah...what do you desire?"
"Go out. Find others of your kind. Tell them of your great feat, your grave injuries, and how they were healed."
"But no one would--"
Neyravah manifested, and the dwarf gasped. The god took a single swipe with a foreclaw and the fangdrake's head was removed from the body. As Nevravah faded, a large lizard came. At Neyravah's suggestion, the dwarf placed the head on the lizard's back.
"Now go. Spread knowledge of me. And one last thing..."
"Yes, Neyravah?"
"What is your name?"
"I am Udil, Great One."
"Thank you. Now then, Udil, I will guide you."

-----

Udil was lead to a clearing in the jungle made by some whipdrakes an a "fortuitous" strike of lightning. The jungle would grow back, but for now this clearing makes a good meeting-place. All dwarves within several miles were brought here, whether by a promise of food or a fear of predators. All told, there are a few hundred dwarves present. They don't understand why they all came here, or why none want to leave. Many are anxious--this is more people than most, if not all, have ever seen at once in their entire lives!
The crowd parted, allowing the strange sight to pass. No one knew what to say. Then Neyravah told Udil.
"I--I have good news for you. There is a mighty being who has granted us these g-gifts...gifts of a great jungle to live in...full of food and--"
Someone throws a rock at Udil. "Gifts?" this dwarf asks. "We once lived in peace. We ate fish and seaweed, and that was enough. Then this 'being' you speak of, who evidently wants the best for us, expresses this care by throwing up trees everywhere, drying the oceans for more trees, and throwing in massive monsters, many of which eat us! Furthermore--"
"STOP."
Neyravah manifested again, soaring down into the clearing. His presence frightened the dwarves.
"Do not be afraid. I come to help you build a new life, a better one. Your spears, once used to catch fish, may be modified to catch new foods. What's more, there are now fruits which you can pick and eat with hardly any effort.
"While there are predators now, there are also bounties of food. It is time for a new era for dwarves. You will build a village here, under my guidance. There is abundant food in the surrounding lands. Life will be easier now. And, as a final gift..."
A flock of flitdrakes flew into the clearing. The dwarves were startled, but then the flitdrakes landed and started looking about. Soon, the dwarves realized the flitdrakes were friendly.

Neyravah smiled as his physical form vanished. The dwarves would be perfectly fine.

Ninja'd by the update. The above is how I imagined it happening, but I was lazy and wrote it piecemeal. Shoot. Too late to retcon another dwarven village in?

The giant leading the dwarves has done well...I must speak with him.

"Hello, Atlas."
((What happens now?))

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on December 24, 2012, 12:43:31 pm

The world exists before history. By that logic, our world is maybe 5-6,000 years old. Since most races start with metalsmithing and writing and such, it would probably be closer to say that's like saying our world is only 2,500 years old, tops.
There's metamorphic and sedimentary rock. Two years, or two thousand years, isn't enough for much more than igneous.

Well we do have recorded history in before that in the fact that we know when the dinosaurs and stuff happened but your right in the fact that we don't know specifics in what happened.

Well, dwarves don't have paleontology. So...yeah. We have a world much older than our written and civilized history, let alone organized civilized recorded history. We can't assume that DF!worlds started in Year 1.

Quote from: GreatWyrmGold on January 18, 2013, 08:16:37 am

Quote from: Neonivek on January 17, 2013, 09:04:20 pm

Quote from: BronzeAge on January 17, 2013, 08:59:53 pm

I skipped the argument. Can we all agree that elves telling a tree to be shaped like a chair, and hiring elvis to grow a tree into a barrel is a good idea?
I personally like my spelling error better.

I don't know, a certain aspect of that is rather silly to me. Shaping a whole tree into a barrel then killing the treee?

Agreeing with Neonivek here, especially the "killing the tree" bit. Maybe there's some advanced magic that lets them grow some objects from trees, but "complex" or large objects and cheap production would both require extracting wood magically and then shaping it mundanely.

Killing the tree was never mentioned, as is unnecessary in both reality and fantasy.

If your method of making barrels involves making trees shaped like barrels...Uprooting trees and then hacking off the roots isn't healthy.

The OP also said that it isn't cheap or fast, you have the option of either taking time to extract it or just going to war with the elves.

...So?

Define complex.

Items with multiple parts, or thin parts, or carefully-shaped parts, or...well, pretty much anything that requires precision. And probably some other stuff.

Quote

How could a few thousand townspeople defeat three or four giants, without at a minimum massive damage to their town?

Whoa a few thousand? Those giants are doomed.
How? Weapons, bows, arrows, siege crossbows.
It is unlikely but they can even be defeated in 1 on 1 combat with a moderately trained soldier with decent armor. Yet alone the militia force of a 1000 population village (Which would be 100 strong)
Weapons and armor really closes the gap.
That and it helps that the ONLY creature that is anywhere close to the power of its original counterpart is the Minotaur who is even TOUGHER then it was in mythology (Where it was unarmed and enslaved)
It doesn't help that this is an "epic" universe.

Thick skin and such helps a lot.
Human skin has a thickness of 2-3 mm. Assume a giant is (5.5*[cube root of 9,000,000/70,000]) about 30 feet tall. Its skin is 1-1.5 cm thick. Subcutaneous tissue in humans is a couple millimeters thick, but would be a few centimeters on a giant. That adds up. Oh, and the humans would mostly be attacking the feet and ankles, maybe the calves; leather high boots of giant size would ruin the humans' attacks. It would be like if you were killed by someone shooting larger-than-average splinters at you while chopping at your boots with...dull scalpel-sized blades? And even if you did die, you'd kill a bunch of those puny people. Armor doesn't provide much protection against being stepped on, or picked up and thrown. Is it worth so many losses just to not have to give up some food?

I would think the villager mob would eventually get a lucky hit like most messed up adventure modes...

In DF 0.34.11? Sure, eventually a villager would get lucky and punch the giant in the head, shattering the skull, driving the skull through the brain, and tearing apart the brain, The Giant has been struck down. By similar principles, a dozen rabbits can take down an elephant. We're not talking current!DF, though, we're talking 1.0, where you'd need to be really tall to reach a giant's head.

This would be contingent upon you having control over what your engravers are making. Its pretty much random, so it's going to be annoying if you've got a guy who's afraid of god X and god X happens to be engraved in the main hauling path

And I shudder to think what'll happen if you get a guy who's afraid of engravings of cheese

The afraid-of-gods thing is more for cursed monsters. Think of it as a new VampiRadar.

As someone suggested, 'absolutely detests' could be code for 'will smash every ____ within sight'.

"He absolutely detests dwarves."

Quote from: wilsonns on January 17, 2013, 05:28:42 pm

*Existance of an object: The individual's power is tied directly to the existance and/or safety of some object, be it an artifact lead grate or an ordinary microline earring.

*Life of another being: Like the previous, but the life of another being as the source this time. The current health of the other being is what controls the individual's power.

Horcruxes, anyone?

Or phylacteries.

Quote from: dragondorker on January 19, 2013, 01:26:35 pm

How about the more obvious example which is already in the game? Tie the life of a species to the health of some environment.

Elf race should be tied to the number/volume of trees in their area. That's a reasonable explanation for their reluctance to let dwarves cut more trees than is necessary.

You could also have the health/power of a species tied to the size of a monument to a god. You know all those megaprojects you do? Now they have a point. Larger pyramids or more luxuriously decorated temples (gem windows, gold altars) result in a more powerful god, which presumably helps your people out in some way.

Maybe not a civilization race tied to environment, but friendly species of that race? Tree spirits or dryads or what-have-you in the case you offered up?
Actually... Elves already were naming some of the local trees before their sites got blanked out until the upcoming version... So.

Dryads would be nice to see.